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lesserjoke 's review for:
Mirage
by Somaiya Daud
I love the rich cultural history that author Somaiya Daud pours into this YA sci-fi debut, much of it drawn from her own Moroccan heritage. She has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the politics of occupation and resistance, and although the plot of a commoner forced to become the princess's body double can be rather slow, it plays well to those inherent tensions. (I'm still confused as to how the girls so resemble each other if one's father is a colonizer from another planet, but you sort of have to suspend your disbelief about doppelgängers going into a Prince and the Pauper / Prisoner of Zenda story like this.)
I would have liked more of a dramatic climax to this first volume of the planned trilogy, and greater interaction among a few key characters, but it's a solid foundation for the sequels to follow. The #ownvoices worldbuilding and dark-skinned, primarily-female cast add to the novel's distinctiveness, and while the male love interest feels somewhat perfunctory so far, the strengths elsewhere in the book lead me to hope he will improve as the series goes on.
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I would have liked more of a dramatic climax to this first volume of the planned trilogy, and greater interaction among a few key characters, but it's a solid foundation for the sequels to follow. The #ownvoices worldbuilding and dark-skinned, primarily-female cast add to the novel's distinctiveness, and while the male love interest feels somewhat perfunctory so far, the strengths elsewhere in the book lead me to hope he will improve as the series goes on.
--Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!--
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter